[The items below appeared in earlier form previously on The Prairie Editor]
1. ONE OF THE OLDEST ETHNIC GROUPS IN
EUROPE HAS NOT EVER HAD ITS OWN
NATION. THE RUSYNS (OR CARPATHO-RUSYNS)
SPEAK THEIR OWN LANGUAGE, AND HAVE A
DISTINCT RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL
HERITAGE. An ancient people who have lived in
the area around the Carpathian Mountains in
central Europe for the past thousand years, the
Rusyn lands have been part of Russia, Ukraine,
Austro-Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Romania.
In 1919, after World War I, various Rusyn leaders
traveled to the Versailles Conference in Paris to
plead for their own nation, but were denied. Today,
many of the world’s 4 million Rusyns live in the U.S.,
a number of whom are celebrities. The most famous
was the artist Andy Warhol.
[Further reading: The People From Nowhere by Robert Magocsi]
2. THE MOST CELEBRATED SPY OF WORLD WAR II
WAS A CATALAN WHO HAD TO SIGN UP FIRST AS
A NAZI AGENT IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED
BY BRITISH INTELLIGENCE AS THEIR DOUBLE
AGENT. Juan Pujols, known universally by the cover
name “Garbo,” devised and implemented the
greatest military deception in modern history by
fooling Hitler and the German Wehrmacht to think
the primary Allied invasion of Europe in 1944 would
be at Calais and not at Normandy. Even three
months after D-Day, “Garbo” persuaded the Nazis
to hold vital divisions at Calais, waiting for an
imaginary army invasion that did not come, and
many consider Garbo’s efforts were a vital part of
D-Day’s ultimate success. When Pujols fled Spain at
the outset of World War II, and tried to join the British
as a spy. he was turned away. Only when he joined the
Nazi Gestapo, did the Brits take him on as a double agent.
[Further reading: Agent Garbo by Steven Talty]
3. THE FIRST SCIENTIST TO CONCEIVE THE
THERMONUCLEAR REACTION IN HYDROGEN,
A DISCOVERY THAT LED DIRECTLY TO THE
H-BOMB, WAS NOT AN AMERICAN, NOR A
GERMAN NOR ANY EUROPEAN. The first physicist
to do so was, ironically, the Japanese physicist
Togutaru Hagiwara who revealed his discovery at
lecture in Kyoto in May 1941, seven months before
Pearl Harbor. Although the first H-bomb was not
exploded until 1954, Hagiwara, in a further irony,
was also a pioneer in the theories which led to the
first A-bomb being exploded over Hiroshima in 1945.
[Further reading: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Robert
Rhodes]
4. ARAMAIC WAS THE ACTUAL LANGUAGE OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT. Although Hebrew and Arabic are
today derived from it, Aramaic is still a living language for
about two million Assyrians, a Christian people who
live in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq where they have
faced persecution for centuries. (A senior member of
the U.S. house of representatives, Anna Eshoo of
California, is the only Assyrian-American in
Congress.
5. JEFFERSON DAVIS’S FOLLY: THE U.S. CAMEL CORPS
In 1853, then U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis of
Mississippi proposed that camels be employed for
transportation in the southwestern frontier. Seventy camels
were then imported from Egypt to form the U.S. Camel Corps
which had some little success prior to the Civil War, although
the camels reportedly were difficult to manage. By 1858, the
project was abandoned, and the camels were then only used
for military purposes. The last known camel reconnaissance
was conducted by the then U.S. army commander in Texas,
General Robert E. Lee in 1860. After the Civil War, the U.S.
camel experiment was abandoned, probably in part because
of its association with the two despised leaders of the
Confederacy. All camels were sold at auction,and as late as
the turn of the century, feral (wild) camels were reported to be
sighted in the arid plains and deserts of the American West.
6. PENNIES USED TO BE THE SIZE OF HALF
DOLLARS, AND TWO CENT, THREE CENT AND
TWENTY CENT COINS USED TO BE LEGAL
Prior to 1856, the U.S. copper one cent piece was approximately
the size of a half dollar. In 1856, the smaller “penny” was
introduced with a flying eagle on its obverse, and in 1859, it was
replaced with the “Indian head” obverse. In 1909, on the
centenary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the “Lincoln cent” (with
an obverse still in use) was introduced. Also in the mid-19th
century, experiments in other coinage denominations were tried,
including both silver and nickel three cent pieces, a copper
two cent piece and a silver twenty cent piece. All were legal
tender, but did not prove popular. Today, they are collector’s
items.
7. THE FIRST MODERN SUMMER FESTIVAL
WAS BEGUN IN WESTERN NEW YORK
The first modern American “summer festival” was opened in
1876 at a site on Lake Chautauqua in western New York, a few
miles east of Erie, Pennsylvania. On land that became known as
the Chautauqua Institution, the venue was created by Protestant
religious leaders who wanted to hold a summer event of serious
religious and aesthetic discussion and presentations of the
performing arts. It quickly caught on, first in the region (drawing
visitors from Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Rochester)
and then nationally, as world famous theologians, philosophers,
political leaders and famed artistic figures spoke and performed
to large crowds in the “gated” community which featured
Victorian-styled homes, cottages, hotels and boarding houses.
Soon, “Chautauquas,” or local religio-cultural summer events
began appearing all over America, and the word “chautauqua”
became a word in the dictionary. From the early 20th century on,
the Chautauqua Institution season became a notable site for
major addresses by U.S. presidents and presidential candidates.
President Franklin Roosevelt made his famous “I hate war” speech
there, and more recently, President Bill Clinton spoke in the
legendary Chautauqua ampitheater. In the 1930‘s, Chautauqua
provided a haven for many of the world’s most famous musicians
fleeing Nazi persecution, including the composer Arnold
Schoenberg. The Institution’s largest hotel, The Athenaeum, is a
magnificent example of grand Victorian architecture, and has
been seen in several motion pictures.
8. A FILM WITH 300,000 EXTRAS
Until Gandhi was released, the world record for the number
of extras in a film was a 1954 Soviet folk tale film with its
battle scene using 106,000 extras. The funeral scene for the
epic about the life of the famed Indian figure, however, used
300,000 extras, of which 200,000 were volunteers and about
100,000 were paid a small fee.
9. JASCHA HEIFTEZ PLAYED THOUSANDS OF
CONCERTS, BUT ONCE STOOD UP AN AUDIENCE
BECAUSE HIS MOTHER DIDN’T LIKE THE HALL
Jascha Heifetz was one of the world’s two greatest classical
violinists, and arguably the most famous. From his debut in
St. Petersburg, Russia at the age of five until his death in
1982, Heifetz literally performed in recitals, concerts and
recordings thousands of times in cities large and small
across the globe. On January 12, 1922, he was scheduled for a
recital at the historic Park Opera House in Erie, PA. By that
time, Heifetz was world renowned, and all of his affairs were
handled by his parents (since he was not yet 21 years old). The
group which arranged the recital in Erie had a contract for the
space now renamed the Park Theater, but the demand for
tickets was so great that the event was moved to the Erie
Arena several blocks away. Instead of the few hundred which
the Park Theater could accommodate, the Erie Arena had
a capacity for 2500, and it was sold out. Heifetz’s piano
accompanist, Samuel Chotzinoff (he later became a major
U.S. music figure, and was personally responsible for
persuading Arturo Toscanini to come to America and conduct
the NBC Symphony), was sent to check out the original venue,
but was told the concert was moved. After then visiting the
Erie Arena (where boxing matches were sometimes held), he
reported back to Heifetz’s manager-mother Anna who was
the third person in the entourage. Claiming her son would be
humiliated by appearing where prizefighters fought, she
adamantly refused to let Heifetz perform. Some contemporary
observers suggested that the real issue was money --- that
Mrs. Heifetz wanted a share of the bigger crowd revenue, but
the bottom line was that Heifetz didn’t play. The story has a
happy ending, however. On March 1 and 2, 1949, the great
violinist returned to Erie to play with the Erie Philharmonic
under its conductor Fritz Mahler (nephew of the composer).
A violinist in the orchestra reported later that the virtuoso’s
playing was “so perfect and inspiring that we played better
than we ever have, before or since.”
10. THE GREATEST BASEBALL BATTER
IN HISTORY COULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF
THE GREATEST PITCHERS
Most will agree that Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball
player ever, and he achieved his fame from his great
prowess with the bat, hitting far more home runs than
anyone else until recent times, and for having one of the
highest lifetime batting averages ever. But Ruth did not
begin his career as a batter. For the Boston Braves, he was
an ace starting pitcher. He even won 23 games in 1916 and
and 24 games in 1917. His lifetime pitching record was
93-46, and he pitched primarily for only six seasons. (He
pitched only five games for the Yankees and won all of
them.) But in one of the most disastrous and one-sided
trades in baseball history, the cash-strapped Braves
sold Ruth’s contract to the New York Yankees in 1920. In
his new home, Ruth quickly became a batter and fielder,
and changed the sport indelibly with home runs and his
iconic public personality.
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Copyright (c) 2014 2015 2016 2017 2020 by Barry Casselman.
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